Dr. Parisa Shooshtari, OICR Investigator and Assistant Professor in the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University.

OICR is proud to welcome Dr. Parisa Shooshtari as an OICR Investigator.

Shooshtari specializes in developing computational, statistical and machine learning methods to understand the biological mechanisms underlying complex diseases, like cancer and autoimmune conditions. She is interested in uncovering how genes are dysregulated in complex diseases by integrating multiple data types and applying machine learning methods to analyze single-sell sequencing data.

Of her many achievements, Shooshtari developed a computational pipeline to uniformly process more than 800 epigenomic data samples from different international consortia. She then built and led a team that developed a web-interface and an interactive genome-browser to make the database publicly available to download and explore.

Shooshtari joins the OICR community with research experience from Yale University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She also served as a Research Associate with the Centre for Computational Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).

Shooshtari recently became an Assistant Professor in the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University, where she officially began her career as an independent researcher. Here, Shooshtari discusses her commitment to collaboration and her transition to professorship.

Your work spans multiple disease areas from autoimmune diseases to cancer, what do these diseases have in common? Is there a specific disease that you’re more interested in?

My work focuses on complex diseases, where instead of one gene causing the disease, there are sometimes tens or hundreds of genes working together to give rise to an ailment.

When it comes to complex diseases, we also know that there are multiple factors that we need to consider, including genetics, epigenetics and environmental factors. We live in an era where we have rich datasets with many different types of data. Each of these data types sheds light upon a different aspect of the disease mechanism, but we need to integrate these data types to gain a comprehensive understanding of how a complex disease works.

I develop computational methods for integrative analysis, so complex diseases are definitely the most interesting to me. I feel lucky to be a researcher at this time when I can help bring these data types together to understand mechanisms of diseases, which in turn will help inform treatment selection or help find new therapeutic strategies.

I am interested in applying our data integration methods to several complex diseases but I am currently working with a few Canadian groups to help better understand Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) – a type of fatal childhood brain cancer.

Your current collaborators include researchers from Yale, Harvard, MIT, SickKids and other leading organizations. How did you initiate and sustain these collaborations?

At the beginning of my research career, I would reach out to scientists who were working on interesting, challenging and cutting-edge problems. I enjoy working in collaborative environments because I believe the key to success in biomedical research is through collaborations between researchers from diverse backgrounds.

With the support of my collaborators, I’ve been able to learn and shift my focus from theoretical computational sciences to applications of data science in genetics of complex diseases. Now, sometimes collaborators approach me with their rich data, which I’m eager to help analyze.

With your new appointment, what are you looking forward to over the next few years?

I am eager to continue expanding my research program and working with new scientists on exciting cutting-edge problems in genetics and epigenetics of complex diseases. New technologies have revolutionized how we study diseases, and we are transitioning to a point where these new technologies are revolutionizing how we treat diseases. I am confident that we will have better ways of treating these diseases in the future using personalized medicine, and I want to help make that a reality.

The awards are for up to $350,000 per year
for up to six years, providing stable research funding and salary support for
recipients to establish their laboratories and build their research platforms
within Ontario. They bring with them expertise in big data, machine learning, multi-omics
analysis and immuno-oncology. The new recipients are:

Dr. Tricia CottrellClinician Scientist I AwardCottrell is a pathologist and immunologist from Johns Hopkins University who recently moved to Kingston to become an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University and Senior Investigator in the Canadian Cancer Trials Group. Cottrell focuses on mapping the interactions between the immune system and cancer cells as patients undergo treatment in order to develop new biomarkers that can better predict the course of a patient’s disease.

Dr. Anna PanchenkoSenior Investigator Award Panchenko was recently recruited to Kingston from the National Center for Biotechnology Information where she developed several methods and algorithms to study the molecular mechanisms behind cancer. Panchenko’s methods have been widely used by thousands of scientists from around the world to better understand the causes of cancer progression. She is now a Professor at Queen’s University and holds a Tier I Canada Research Chair.

Dr. Parisa ShooshtariInvestigator I AwardShooshtari is an Assistant Professor at Western University in London, where she is establishing her first laboratory as an independent researcher. Joining the OICR community with experience from Yale University, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Shooshtari brings unique expertise in developing computational, statistical and machine learning methods to understand the biology underlying complex diseases like cancer.

With their new appointments as OICR
Investigators, Cottrell, Panchenko and Shooshtari join 25 other IA recipients
as part of OICR’s collaborative cancer research community of more than 1,900
highly-qualified personnel across 23 Ontario institutes. Since its inception in
2006 the IA program has provided funding to recruit and keep world-class cancer
researchers and clinician scientists in universities, hospitals and research
centres across Ontario.

“Sustainable funding for talented scientists is
critical to building a strong research ecosystem that will deliver the next
wave of innovations and discoveries. The Investigator Award program is key to attracting
and keeping top cancer researchers in Ontario,” says Dr. Christine Williams,
Deputy Director and Interim Head, Clinical Translation at OICR. “We are
particularly pleased that all three awards have been given to accomplished
female scientists and are proud to offer our support as they establish their
research programs in Ontario.”

“We are thrilled to welcome these
highly-regarded researchers and look forward to their contributions to the
health of Ontarians and the province’s cancer research sector,” says Hon. Ross
Romano, Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities. “Investing in top
talent will allow Ontario to stay at the forefront of bio-medical research and realize
the benefits of advancements in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment more
quickly.”

As professors at their respective academic
institutions, the three new IA recipients will take part in providing high-quality
training to students in areas such as computer science and machine learning. Technological
advancements and an evolving global economy are changing work in Ontario. These
new, unique, cross-appointed positions will strengthen Ontario’s cancer research
capacity while helping prepare students for careers in a rapidly-evolving
knowledge-intensive industries.

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